Easy Peas Recipes

I’ve been taught that there is a distinct difference between cooking and baking. In a general sense, “cooking” refers to preparing heated food on top of a stove or over a fire, and “baking” refers to preparing heated food (especially fermented foods) in a closed oven. I’ve often wondered what the actual difference is, if any. So I did a little research, and here’s what I found.

Let’s start with the term, “cook.” According to the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary, “to cook” means, “to prepare (food) for eating by a heating process.” That in itself sounds a little vague. Moreover, “a cook (person)” means, “a person who prepares food for eating.” …also vague. There is no mention in this second definition of heating anything for consumption.

I decided to look in other dictionary to see if there was a clearer definition of “cook.” I went to the Cambridge English Dictionary. I didn’t fare any better. Here’s what I got: “When you cook food, you prepare it to be eaten by heating it in a particular way, such as baking or boiling, and when food cooks, it is heated until it is ready to eat.” So according to Cambridge, cooking and baking are the same thing? I tried dictionary.com, dictionary.net, Collins Dictionary and got similar results. The definition of “cook” or “a cook” was similarly obscure wherever I looked.

I hoped that a definition of “bake” would give me better results, and it did. Going back to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “bake” means, “to cook by dry heat especially in an oven.” Well, at least that matches what I had been taught. Dictionary.com gave me a slightly different answer, however; “to cook by dry heat in an oven or on heated metal or stones. The method in this case uses dry heat, but whether it is applied in an enclosed space or not is debatable. How about the Cambridge Dictionary’s definition? “to cook inside an oven, without using added liquid or fat.” That surely agrees with the “dry” component of the other definitions, but cake doesn’t start out dry and I grease my cake pans before baking, so how does that fit Cambridge’s definition?

I was insanely curious about these definitions and decided to poke around on the internet. According to Wiktionary.com, “bake” means, “To cook using an oven, especially baked goods.” What do they mean by “baked goods?” Aren’t we assuming that if using an oven with dry heat, whatever we’re making in it is baked? And are we cooking in an oven? I thought we were baking in an oven.

While I was on Wiktionary’s website, I went back to the term “cook,” just for fun. This got interesting.

1. To prepare food for eating, typically by heating it, combining it with other ingredients, seasoning it, preparing it for serving, etc.
2. To apply heat to food in the course of preparing it, particularly in a way that transforms it rather than simply making it warmer

I was overwhelmed, so I settled for an AI answer. I used Copilot Search online and searched “cooking vs. baking.” Here is the summary of the long explanation:

“Cooking is a broad, flexible art of preparing food using heat, while baking is a precise subset of cooking that uses dry heat in an oven to create baked goods…

…In essence, all baking is cooking, but not all cooking is baking. Cooking is considered an art due to its flexibility and creative potential, whereas baking is often described as a science because of its reliance on precision and chemical transformations.”

This makes more sense to me that any of the “official” dictionary definitions. It is possible to bake on a stovetop, given the right vessel and method, and it is possible to cook in an oven. Apparently, the difference between cooking and baking really has more to do with the personality of the methods than anything else. If cooking is an art, then the cook has leeway for creativity, experimentation and fusion. A cook probably is more a Type B person and has a freer approach to creating meals. She is purposeful and careful, but like a painter, she is willing to experiment in the kitchen. If baking is a science, then specific methods matter. Bakers need to be mindful of precise temperatures, measurements and even the humidity. Bakers can “feel” their way through a recipe but only if they have experience baking – and even then, there are strict rules they need to follow. They may be a more Type A personality. There is room for creativity in baking, but within strict parameters.

Now that that’s settled, what about the term “grilling?” 🙂